Doing art as Fuck This Life, Weirdo Dave (born David Sandey), uses the medium of magazine and newspaper clippings. Collage is nothing new, but it’s his selection of provocative images and their careful reassembly that triggers maximum blast. His most recent work is large scale, spanning the wall for Supreme’s square footage inside Dover Street Market New York, a recently opened transformative shopping experience from Japan’s Comme des Garçons team.
Sage Elsesser and Sean Pablo Murphy have been anointed next generation by the likes of Weirdo Dave and Jason Dill. Young guns/youth crew. #Tanboys. Supreme Team, they ride Fucking Awesome boards while filmed by Bill Strobeck.

SAGE ELSESSER: I guess we should start with this interview and I guess to start it we got to be like, what’s your name? What size waist are you?

EVERYBODY: (laughs)

SAGE: Hi, I’m Sage. I wear a 30/30, but I’m trying to aim for a 31 waist right now.

TODD JORDAN: What sign are you?

SAGE: I’m an Aquarius.

TODD: What’s that, June?

SAGE: January through middle of February, I believe.

WEIRDO DAVE: Where were you when the Sex Pistols formed?

SAGE: Probably my mom’s stomach.

TODD: Probably not even there yet. How old are you?

SAGE: Sixteen.

TODD: Motherfuckers.

DAVE: How old is Sean Pablo?

SEAN PABLO MURPHY: Sixteen, just turned it.

TODD: He just turned sixteen? Fuck you, guys.

SAGE: Too bad whoever is listening to this interview, right now I’m giving you the middle finger. Fuck you, you suck. And have fun typing this in, I hope it takes three fucking hours.

TODD: Three hours? It’ll take three days.

SAGE: Three fucking hours per question.

TODD: Who’s talking to who? Roundtable Barbara Walters.

DAVE: 60 Minutes.

TODD: Let’s start back with the first video, your first skate video, so everybody can get an idea of the era that you came from.

SAGE: Well, actually the first skate video I can remember having in my house was the 411 tapes, I don’t know how my mom had them, but I had VHS tapes and I also had the Termite VHS. I remember it had a song, “The Termites Ate My House Up” (laughs) and Austyn Gillette ollied off a fucking roof.

TODD: You’re talking about that little kid shit. What was the other one? The one that Spanky skated for?

SAGE: Hawk?

TODD: Nah.

DAVE: Pharmacy?

TODD: Nah, it was the first little kid company, like Gromit?

SEAN: Grom King?

SAGE: Dude, I’m not even going to lie, I had a fucking Termite complete with
Grind King trucks on it.

TODD: Sick!

DAVE: What wheels?

SAGE: They were like blank wheels, the real slippery ones that was hard as ever.

DAVE: What’s your favorite thing about skateboarding right now? Like, why would you skateboard over doing anything else in the world?

SAGE: Because I’m doing it with the best people.

DAVE: Between you and Sean Pablo, which one of you is Mick Jagger and which one of you is Keith Richards?

SAGE: I’d say Sean is Mick Jagger.

SEAN: No way.

SAGE: He’s the pretty one, he has the moves.

DAVE: Who’s the handsomer of the two?

SAGE: Of us?

DAVE: Yeah.

SEAN: Oh c’mon, this dude.

SAGE: Are you fucking kidding? Dude, you get way more ladies than I do.

DAVE: What is the best potato chip on the market right now?

SAGE: I’m going to have to go with, probably, like a jalapeño or seasalt and vinegar Kettle Chips. That’s a hard one.

DAVE: Jalapeño cheddar took over. It’s like everything is jalapeño cheddar, that’s like the new shit.

SAGE: You ever had Cheetos like that? So fat-boy-fantasy.

DAVE: You ever put jalapeño cheddar Cheetos in a hamburger?

SAGE: No, but I know damn well you have put some nacho cheese on—

DAVE: EVERYTHING.

SAGE: Dude, you ever had those Fritos from the ice cream truck with the chili cheese?

DAVE: Chili cheese? That’s like some LA shit. You can’t get that in New York.

SAGE: Nah. Lets do it. Dave, play the record on your player backwards.

TODD: What’s your favorite record to listen to backwards?

SAGE: Probably “American Flag” by Cat Power, so I can figure out where the fuck those drums came from, ’cause they are backwards, so if you run it backwards, you’ll hear it normal.

TODD: The drums?

SAGE: Those are the Beastie Boys’ drums.

TODD: You guys ever skate with headphones on?

SEAN: Yeah, but when I’m by myself.

TODD: Only by yourself?

SEAN: Yeah, I’ll do it with other people, but it’s not really that good of a look.

SAGE: I’ve done it.

SEAN: But I think certain people can pull it off.

SAGE: Paulo Diaz can.

DAVE: Tony Alva.

SEAN: Oh, yeah. Muska.

SAGE: Muska got a fucking boom box.

SEAN: Tony Karr.

SAGE: Lutzka!

TODD: Greg Lutzka with the big white ones.

SAGE: Greg Lutzka, if you’re seeing this, fuck you!

TODD: He had the harshest headphones. You guys are talking about people who can pull it off?

SAGE & SEAN: Yeah.

TODD: (laughs) Ok.

SEAN: There’s not a lot.

TODD: When I heard you say Lutzka, I thought you were joking. He can’t pull it off.

SEAN: Muska can pull it.

DAVE: Anytime I see a skater with an iPhone and headphones, I’m like, dude, do you know your photo’s going to be taken? It’s like, dude, get it together, dog. Listen to your fucking rap song, get it in your head, and then go skating. You don’t need the actual thing in your face unless you’re Tony Alva and you got the headband.

SEAN: Sage, what trick are you psyched on right now? Like most psyched on. Like what trick are you trying to learn?

SAGE: Both. What type of question is that? If you’re not flipping in and you’re not flipping out, you’re not fucking doing it (laughs).

SEAN: Best trick wins.

DAVE: What color was the girl you made out with last?

SAGE: Her skin color?

DAVE: Yeah.

SAGE: She was white. Actually, she might be kinda Asian, yeah, I think she’s like, half Asian… Have you guys ever rolled weed in a dollar bill? Dude you gotta glue it, you can usually just take a piece of tape.

TODD: Have you done that?

DAVE: What’s your favorite skate team?

SAGE: Skate team?

DAVE: Or moment when all the dudes were on the same team.

SAGE: Right now or any time period?

SEAN: Any time period.

SAGE: It’ll be soon, that’s my opinion.

DAVE: Where were you the first time you saw Mouse?

SAGE: Hmm, I think downstairs in my grandparents’ house.

DAVE: On the Internet?

SAGE: Yeah, on the big desktop computer.

SEAN: That was before our time, dude.

SAGE: Yeah, so before our time.

DAVE: But like, that first time you saw it, what made you
wanna look for it?

SAGE: I don’t know, it was Girl and you just knew that Girl was the best.

SEAN: Like Goldfish, Mouse, Yeah Right!, you just got to see it for yourself.

SAGE: Yeah, when I put a Mark Gonzales sticker on my board. But the best one was when I dropped a match on his rug, ’cause I lit it and I was seeing how long it would light for and I just started staring at the flame and dropped it on his rug and he goes, “Anything in the fucking house but the rug.” He’s like, “Sage, I’m serious, anything in the fucking house but the rug.”

TODD: That was in LA?

SAGE: Yeah.

TODD: What type of rug was it?

SAGE: It was this really nice one that AVE gave to him. It’s a really nice rug, it’s a good one.

DAVE: Are we supposed to do some focused questions?

TODD: Other than skateboarding and fashion, do you guys go check out art while you’re in New York?

SEAN: You can get inspiration for skateboarding from all types of shit. From art, people on the street, you can take anything and bring it into your skateboarding.

SAGE: I feel like skating gets a little overwhelming sometimes, so you need something else to do and being in fucking boarding school I just need to play piano and make shit, look at the newspaper.

DAVE: How do you feel about being an African American artist?

SAGE: What the fuck? What the fuck I look like nigga? Does this look like a fuckin’ game?

DAVE: Being one of the only Asians not good at math, how the fuck did you not get into college? It’s like, I didn’t.

EVERYBODY: (laughs)

DAVE: I was talking to Alex Olson at the bar one night about a spaceship and low and behold, first thing in the morning, he has a meeting at Nike and he talks about my fucking idea. Nah, look, Star Wars? Nah. I really wasn’t tripping off that, Planet of the Apes? Yo, live nigga. But my spaceship skate park? Don’t fuck with my shit. Or rather, my ship, don’t fuck with my ship (laughs). Pun intended.

This is Chad Muska’s first pro skateboard. Sixteen years before TMZ posted his faded Hollywood graffiti arrest, nine years before he fucked Paris Hilton, eight years before his unlicensed DJ album MuskaBeatz. The board is appropriately titled Hate.

Hate was made at Tum Yeto, a skateboard manufacturer for Toy Machine in San Diego, California, during the summer of 1995. Its graphic was screen printed by a skateboarder with an artist’s eye, someone who cared about skateboarding.

“Those were the lacquer ink days,” recalls Don Mills, a former screen printer at Tum Yeto. “The graphic had a white background and was, I think, the first four-color process screen print we tried of a photograph. The photo was blurry except for the fist, which was in focus so it looked okay without being perfectly registered.”

Four-color process is a method that uses four key colors of ink: cyan, magenta, yellow and black. When cyan, magenta and yellow are combined at full strength, the resulting secondary colors are red, green and blue. Registration is the method of correlating overlapping colors on one single image. Since a skateboard is not flat, exactly aligning the surface area of each silk-screen for each color hit of thick ink is difficult.

“The screens need to stretch a bit to accommodate for the concave, so perfect and consistent registration is not happening,” Mills says.

Hate’s magenta ink ran wide by a few millimeters on the left. The silk-screen had stretched a little too much.

Mills began printing skateboard graphics for Zorlac in 1989 in Miramar, California before switching to Tum Yeto in 1992. Pros never visited the in-house print shop to inspect his work, except occasionally for Ed Templeton, owner of Toy Machine and the artist responsible for creating the brand’s distinctive logos, ads and board designs.

“Ed would lurk sometimes if there was a special graphic or something with different separations but he normally sent stuff in,” Mills says. “The pros did not give a fuck or seem to even care.”

Hate’s graphic was created by Thomas Campbell, another California skater turned gallery-represented artist. Campbell was involved with the defining Beautiful Losers exhibition in 2004. From what Chad Muska remembers, it wasn’t something specifically made to be the graphic.

“Thomas just did it, like ‘Hey, check this out, what I made,’ and then Ed was like, ‘Oh, let’s put that on as the graphic,’” Muska says.

Campbell had shot the black-and-white photo of an unknown teenage Muska during a road trip to Las Vegas years earlier. Fist clenched, the word “HATE” is tattooed across Muska’s knuckles. The printed portrait was then placed behind plywood Campbell had shot with a shotgun, both then photographed together again to become the graphic.

“This idea that this actual art piece was created in order to make that graphic is just insane on its own,” Muska says. “I thought it was an amazing image that represented me.”

Muska’s time at Toy Machine was brief. The drama at the Welcome to Hell premiere at La Paloma theatre in the spring of 1996 shook the skateboarding world. Muska got injured while filming for the video. Stress and expectations erupted that night between Muska, Templeton and fellow Toy Machine pro Jamie Thomas, who would later be credited for making Welcome to Hell, one of the heaviest videos from that era.

When VHS copies of Welcome to Hell arrived at skate shops, Templeton placed a skull over Muska’s face in a group photo on the box sleeve, his name nowhere to be seen.

Pro for Toy Machine less than a year, only a handful of graphics intended for Muska got screened.

“He was not a strong seller for Toy,” Mills recalls. “We would do an initial run of 300 or 500, depending on rider and graphic, then a follow-up of 300, again depending on the rider and how strong the graphic was selling.”

Assuming Hate was a single run edition of 300, this particular Hate is a survivor and a testament to the greatness of screen printing — a process that hasn’t existed in skateboard manufacturing for more than ten years.

In 1999/2000 skater silk screeners started to get their pink slips. They were being replaced by a large, crude, expensive machine.

“It was the beginning of the Chinese shit,” Mills says.

“Everything was going to change,” adds Gregg Chapman, owner of family-operated Chapman Skateboards, a manufacturer/supplier/distributor in Long Island, New York. “Up until that point, the entry barrier to skateboarding was screen printing, nobody wanted to deal with it.”

Chapman recalls leaving his exhibitors booth at the 2000 Action Sports Retailer trade show in a rental car with fellow mentor and big-wig Paul Schmitt of PS Stix. In a warehouse somewhere near Los Angeles, they had an appointment to view a piece of equipment that had just landed in the States: the first-ever heat transfer machine. With it, a graphic could magically appear on a skateboard in minutes.

“I can’t describe the look on Paul’s face and the way I was feeling when we saw the machine,” Chapman says. “I’m thinking about how this is going to impact all the silk-screen shops.”

Back then, skateboard manufactures had partnerships with print shops. Printers had their own techniques and tricks, they put a lot of energy and time into developing screen-printing methods to look better than the next guy.

“There was so much secrecy about the technique of the curve screens or the swivel screens, it was always this big deal,” Chapman says.

With heat transfer machines, the dynamic had completely changed.

“It was really like toy technology,” Chapman says. “Something from Taiwan was going to come over to California and impact skateboard manufacturing.”

“Whoever has one of these machines is unlocked in that sense, one of the key rooms; they’ve unlocked one of the big hurdles of producing the skateboards.”

Applying a heat transfer sheet to a skateboard takes minutes and involves one person to operate the machine. Peel off the plastic protector like a sticker, place the transfer sheet on the board top down and feed it through the machine’s hot iron roller.

An assembly-line operation with so many cycles per hour, if the transfer sheet is flawed, no stress, you don’t bond it to the skateboard, you throw it away.

“When we were direct screen printing, you put all those man hours into a wooden board all the way through finish,” Chapman says. “You’d see a lot more boards with slightly imperfect graphics going through, or getting the nod, versus getting kicked out, because when you kick out that bad graphic, you’re throwing away so many man hours.”

With the skateboard industry growing and growing, China was ready to take it.

“You have these big companies like a World [Industries], like a Girl [Skateboards] that are just marketing companies, they are already competitive and have market share. Now they’re getting even more money for a board, and they have even more momentum,” Chapman says. “That’s where you saw this big shift from the other companies — if we don’t do something fast, we’re going to lose more market share to the companies that went offshore.”

It got real cutthroat quickly.

“You’d watch the price of the transfer go from being somewhat more in line with direct screen printing, to a little bit better to finally one person under-cutting the next,” Chapman says. “Now you’re starting to get phone calls solicited directly from the factory with broken English.”

“Everyone is on Chinese boards and they either don’t care or don’t give a shit because the graphic is cool,” chimes Mills.

“Nowadays it’s just illustrated — you know, some graphic design kid creating all these graphics on Illustrator,” Muska says.

“When we started direct screen printing it was forty-five line screens, we thought we were cool, like ‘Wow, look at that half tone, it looks great,’” Chapman says. “Now fast forward so many years you’re looking at 151, which is pretty intense.”

Hate’s half-tone dots are easy to spot at 45 line screens. Four layers of lacquer later, you can feel the hard ink on the board and still see the sheen. After all this time of being exposed to air and temperatures, the graphic has kept its pop.

“You can have silk-screened boards for years and years and years, and you might scratch it and whatnot, but the heat transfer seems to flake off eventually, you know what I mean,” Muska says.

“I do see some of the heat transfer boards expanding and contracting and they start to get a little crack in them and everything like that, but there are some that don’t,” Chapman says. “There’s so much chemistry going on that I think you’re going to have inconsistent results of which ones are holding up over time or not.”

“Heat transfer boards are just made for quicker turn-around and not meant to be saved, they’re just meant to be skated,” Muska says.

Skated and destroyed. You can’t blame skate companies for using heat transfers.

Now everyone has the sense to hang their heat-transfer-graphic boards as collectibles. Ironically, hardly anyone had the foresight to collect all of the best screen printed boards from the 80s and 90s.

Hate was purchased on eBay for $319.97.

After Toy Machine, Muska flipped to Shorty’s. Quickly, he and his signature shadow graphic trended huge for many years, selling strong through the industry-wide transition.

“Probably at least a five-year span on that graphic, at least, I would say,” Muska says. “I referenced back to the 80s, when you walked into a shop, you looked up and you knew the graphic that represented the pro that you identified with.”

Chad Muska is still pro, only now for Element.

“People like cycling through new graphics every season just to come up with something new, instead of branding something with the pro, making an iconic image that stands with the pro,” Muska adds. “They convinced themselves through sales reps that in order to sell more product, you need to create a new graphic every time.”

“When there are boundaries, imperfections, it’s art,” Chapman says. “Everyone had somebody’s finger print in the ink, the ink was kinda bleeding off this edge, this color didn’t match the last run because the guy mixed it by hand.”

Chapman ended up buying the first-ever heat transfer machine. It still sits on his warehouse floor, in operation, but with little resemblance to its original self due do years of wear, servicing and makeshift replacement parts.

“We made boards, it’s hard to explain — you should have seen what we were doing when we were doing it.” ♠

When Future took Jimmy Kimmel’s stage with Kelly Rowland, late last year, to deliver a performance of “Neva End” from his Pluto 3D, you would have been a fool to deny his charisma. Future bobbed and bounced to the beat of his live band, clad in a black and red leather outfit that looked like something H-Town may have worn to perform “Knockin Da Boots,” as everyone ate it up.

If Future would have opted to perform his club banger, “Turn On The Lights,” instead, there’s no doubt that the in-studio audience would have sang every word. Nevertheless, on they kept, vibing hard to “Neva End,” his extra-soft radio hit.

Atlanta’s Future is the perfect storm in many ways. The inspirational yet contemplative leader of the Trap Rap movement, his style and sound is a mixture of laid-back singsong moments, codeine infused rhyme schemes and Neiman Marcus swag. Drizzle in some outer space motif and sprinkle over a hauntingly melodic Mike Will Made It production and “tha truth” will keep being written.

AVI FRIEDMAN: What are your thoughts on people saying you’re the next Max B?

FUTURE: Oh, man (pauses), Max B is a real good dude. It’s not bad to be compared to, since that dude put out over a hundred albums, I can deal with that, it’s not bad at all.

You have quite the ability to sing. Growing up, did you take singing lessons?

It’s just something that kinda happened, you know?

What was it like working with R. Kelly? He’s been known to be out there…

R. Kelly is a good dude; he’s very professional and knows how to make hits on hits on hits.

You’re sort of ushering in the second generation of “ATLiens,” do you feel any sort of responsibility for that?

No responsibilities but to show the ATL that it’s about making hit records, it’s about showing and proving to the other artists that you can keep doing you, ’cause they try to box you in and box you in, you got to be able to work it out. There’s a lot of frustrations and errors and trials and tribulations to make the music what it is. You got to learn how to grow so that’s what my whole outlook is — being a good inspiration to Atlanta, to show other artists that’s coming up behind me to keep doing it and never look back.

You did the Free Bricks tape with Gucci Mane, can we expect you to do any more collaborative tapes? Possibly with 2 Chainz?

Really, at this point in my career, that’s in the past. Right now, I’m looking for new adventures, so a mixtape is gonna be a mixtape and I’ve already made history, ’cause my mixtape catalogue is really long, and so right now it’s about going to the next level. Like I said, I’m not looking behind, you know what I mean? Being able to capitalize off the brand and Future Hendrix, now that everything else is behind me. Going from doing mixtapes and collaborating on mixtapes, with other artists, to just focusing on Future Hendrix and capitalize on Future Hendrix and everything that’s around me like Freebandz, or one of the new artists that I work with. I wanna make sure that I’ve reached the full potential that I’m able to do and come up with a plan and to create and find my creative juices for the right moment.

You mentioned Freebandz, what can we expect from that?

I mean, it’s crazy; anybody who’s up on the Freebandz movement knows that, no matter the name, we always drive off very ambitiously. We’re very self-driven, self-motivated, hard working. Making sure you stay in the studio every day, for whatever artist to call. We just got to keep that same drive, keep that same passion for music. It’s about identifying those artists that want to take it over to the next level and go all the way, full-fledged. Being able to know that there’s going to be frustrating times in this game, that it’s going to hurt you. There’s going to be certain obstacles that you got to cross over. In the game you got to win those situations out and it’s going to be a beautiful situation at the end of this road. I believe there’s going to be something, something… Gon’be a step of history made.

What’s the perfect ratio of mixing Sprite and Actavis?

With purple, I really don’t know with that, you know what I mean? That’s ’cause it’s not like I’m the mad scientist or whatever. I’m just experienced with this medicine. It’s just I do what I do; I’m not in the lab working on it. It’s something I’m trying to move on forward from. It’s just the time hasn’t came, but there’s gonna be a time where I have to make a move on past the Actavis. It’s so hard ’cause I ain’t never been sober so it’s like, man, I don’t know what it feels like to be sober, so it’s kinda scary.

Are you at all influenced by reggae music? A lot of West Indians say they can hear a Jamaican style in most of your records.

It’s the melody of it, the more melodic sounds, the Caribbean flavors, the beat patterns — everything about music. I love music so much it don’t matter what style of music it is, or what category it’s from. Pop, urban, to crossover, to rock ‘n’ roll, to country to techno, I take something from every music world and I apply it to Future and try to find a way to build from that.

How would you describe your music? You have such a crazy range between a song like “Deeper Than the Ocean” all the way to “Turn on the Lights,” it’s almost somewhat emotional.

Yeah, it is, man. I get emotional on records. It’s very emotional, like I’m letting, you know, Future Hendrix past and my pain, and it’s a reflection of the things that I’m thinking right now.

What is your favorite fashion piece? Is there something specific?

Nah, nah, Freebandz apparel the only real pieces that I love and that I cherish most. Any other designers I just wear and might put together, you know. I’m not a dude with names, I’m a dude for fashion like I pick the fashion over the names ’cause at the end of the day I like the way I put it together, put different colour patterns together, the coordination of it.

You had the best R&B tracks of 2012 with “Turn on the Lights” and “Love Song.” Is R&B a realm you make an effort to tackle or does it come naturally?

It comes natural, I don’t try to force it. Today I don’t say, ‘I’m going to the studio to make an R&B song.’ I say, ‘I’m going to the studio to make a great song.’

How did you get the name Future?

It’s always being relevant. When I was young seeing the older heads would always say, ‘Man, you’re the future.’ Always looking forward and being ahead of the curve, being a force to come, and I was a force to come — people had seen that early on in my career or early on in my life. The dudes that came around me gave me that name and planted me with “Future” just to say, ‘You the future, you the future, you the future.’ They would always call me Future and they would tell me my time would come and I was living up to their expectations. The word is powerful, to be able to live and be the future right now ’cause I’m always looking to reinvent myself. The name always keeps me on my toes ’cause the future is always new and always fresh. Future always come up with the fresh lingo or the new fresh trend or whatever.

From the inception of your career did you perceive yourself to get this big?

I always think of me as a special individual, you know what I mean? Not to toot my own horn, but I always felt like I had something else to offer the world than just being a hustler full of lyrics, standing on the corner, doing what I was doing in the streets. I’d never seen myself doing that for the rest of my life. I always thought of a way to take it to the next level, it was all a learning experience for me. And what I’ve learned is that if you can live through certain things, certain trials and errors of your life, then you’ll be able to go from there and be a better person. Everything that I went through has made me a better person. I never thought that I was that person when I was in that situation, I always knew I was destined for greatness. ♠

“GOT TO HAVE STYLE AND LEARN TO BE ORIGINAL.” A QUOTE THAT HAS BEEN STUCK IN MY BRAIN SINCE I WAS A KID: KRS ONE “MY PHILOSOPHY.” A BIG PART OF OUR LIFESTYLE IS TO PLAY YOUR PART CREATIVELY – THIS TAKES STYLE. WHEN YOU HAVE A VOICE AND AN AUDIENCE YOU CAN TRIGGER OFF ORIGINALITY. GHOSTFACE AND WU-TANG BROUGHT THIS PARTICULAR PRODUCT TO A MAIN STREAM LEVEL, VOUCHED FOR IT AND STAMPED IT WITH THEIR APPROVAL. THIS TYPE OF BRANDING IS PIRATING – THEY WERE USING SOMEONE ELSE’S PRODUCT – BUT IT IS ALSO ACCESSIBLE TO THE MASSES. THIS CREATES THE IDENTITY OF THE CULTURE YOU ARE PREACHING. AT THE SAME TIME I CALL THIS TREND-ENDING SINCE THE SECRET IS OUT THE BAG AND ON THE FOOT. A LOT OF CITY DWELLERS AND NATIVE NEW YORKERS WILL PULL BACK ONCE IT REACHES A WIDE AUDIENCE – IT IS THEIR NATURE TO BE ON TOP AND FIRST. THIS IS ALRIGHT, BECAUSE ONCE THE SMOKE CLEARS THE STYLE AND STUDY MASTER WILL STAND BY THE PRODUCT AND KEEP EVOLVING CLASSIC STYLES IN MODERN DAY FASHION.

They are in a way the anti-sneaker and are today as they have always been: sensible shoes, casual shoes. Comfortable, understated, and free of extraneous embellishments. No logos, design flourishes, technological advancements, just sheer comfort and style. Designed for walking, not fashion, not sport, not breaking necks. The original Wallabees, hand-made in Ireland by Padmore & Barnes, remain untouchable classics.

Different people will tell you different things, but Frank Bryan, general manager and director for Padmore & Barnes in Ireland, is the most concise with his answer when he says quite simply, “We made the best shoes in the world.”

The original Wallabee was designed after a German shoe made by a company called Viking. In 1967, Padmore & Barnes, under the ownership of Clarks, began to produce their own version of the shoes, then called Grasshoppers. When the shoes were launched in the U.S., Paddy Roberts, then the managing director and current owner of P&B, realized that the Grasshopper brand name was already registered and was therefore off limits. He came up with the name Wallabee (Wallaby was also a registered name at the time) and the rest is history. From 1967 onwards Padmore & Barnes exported to 29 countries and made 25,000 pairs per week. In addition to the original, many different Wallabee styles were created by the in-house design team at P&B. The P500 Plaintoe, Weaver, Natalie, Side-Lace, and other variations of the crepe-soled original Wallabee were produced. All classics.

For twenty years Clarks had their Wallabees exclusively produced by P&B in Ireland, until Clarks felt that going forward, the production of footwear in the UK would not be financially viable. “Commercially the decision by Clarks to produce their Wallabee in China was correct,” states Bryan. “[P&B] could not have coped with the production levels that were required…and our costs were a lot higher than China.” P&B negotiated a buyout from Clarks along with a licensing agreement for the use of the Clarks Wallabee brand from 1987 to 1997 — an agreement that excluded all of North America. Clarks subsequently moved all Wallabee production to China and Vietnam, while Wallabees for the rest of the world were still produced in Ireland under the Clarks name by P&B.

At this point, consumers in Japan, Europe and the UK continued to enjoy the quality, comfort and style of handmade Irish Wallabees from Padmore & Barnes, while North American customers were shipped the new and modified versions made in China. “The Chinese production of the Wallabee was really a copy and very little effort was made to recreate the original product,” says Bryan. “The last shape was wrong and the fitting was wrong. The success of the original Wallabee was very much about the shape and the fit.” For example, the toebox on Irish Wallabees has a lower profile and follows more closely the shape of your foot. According to Bryan, “Irish craftsmanship has been unsurpassed when it came to producing this style.” P&B trained people all over Ireland to hand stitch the uppers of their shoes. They sent out trucks to towns across the country — they’d distribute unstitched leathers and pick up the finished ones. “Many families would sit watching TV at night and earn money from hand stitching,” says Bryan.

In 1997 when their licensing agreement expired, P&B was able to continue on without the Clarks Wallabee name, releasing shoes under their in-house Erlandia and Padmore & Barnes brand names in addition to numerous collaborative projects with other brands and retailers. “Our strong customer base in Japan decided that they did not want Chinese made shoes and wanted the Irish made shoes,” says Bryan. “At this point I went on a quick sale mission to Japan.” There Padmore & Barnes made partnerships with companies such as United Arrows, Watanabe & Co., Highbridge and SOMH, who specifically wanted their shoes made by Padmore & Barnes in Ireland. “Based on our success in Japan, a lot of international shoe buyers and range builders were keeping an eye on what was happening,” says Bryan. Since production of Clarks Wallabees moved wholesale to Asia, P&B remained the only place to go for the handcrafted originals, and brands like Paul Smith and Supreme began to contact P&B with requests to make authentic original Wallabee styles for them.

“I always loved and wore Clarks, but only the original ones that were handmade in the UK,” says James Jebbia, founder of Supreme. “The shape and quality changed once they switched production to China. All kinds of cool people in New York wore them, young to old, nerds, skaters, rappers, teachers, dentists, etc. They were comfortable, looked fresh and were of great quality. To me, the original Wallabees and desert boots are classic staples, they never go out of style, similar to a Chuck Taylor or a Vans Era. Once they started making them in China you could no longer find the good original ones. It was on a trip to Tokyo that I found some older ones with a Padmore & Barnes label. When I got back home I simply contacted them to see if they would be down to do some styles for [Supreme].” Jebbia wanted his shoes made using the original lasts and same high quality materials that Padmore & Barnes were known for.

“We were approached by James from Supreme in 2000 and he traveled from the U.S. to GDS [shoe trade show] in Düsseldorf for a meeting,” recalls Bryan. “James was wearing original Wallabees. He knew what he wanted and we had it.” Padmore & Barnes supplied various original Wallabee styles to Supreme including P500 Plaintoes and a new style created for Supreme called the M345 Sahara Boot, in a variety of suede and leather treatments. They sold for around $150 a pair, about 50% more than the Chinese production shoes, a price many customers in the U.S. weren’t willing to pay at that time. “What people didn’t realize though was that the original Wallabees were always pretty expensive. Being hand-made and using great quality materials doesn’t come that cheap,” says Jebbia. “So, even in the 80’s they were around $150 a pair. People who knew what was up appreciated them though, so that was cool.”

Aaron Bondaroff, longtime Supreme employee, former aNYthing store founder, and current head of Off Bowery Productions in New York chimes in. “At this time Supreme was one of the only brands — homegrown from the streets — that was pushing products and independent styles. Supreme was and has been an educational tool for start-up companies and DIY movements with a visionary like James and a crew of stylemasters, skaters and hustlers. It was a perfect match of original products and unforced placement. People who knew P&B were stoked and got their shoes and extra pairs to store. Others who just respected Supreme and was drawn to the simple style of it purchased them and came back weeks after ranting about how amazing and comfortable they were and would buy another pair. There wasn’t that many people at this time that were such fanatics of Supreme and had knowledge of P&B. People didn’t catch on till the factory shut and the three styles came out with Supreme.”
With their success in Japan and the association with Supreme, P&B had entered into an area outside their traditional market. “We went to visit a Supreme store in Tokyo and we were blown away by the reaction to us and our product,” Bryan said. “I believe at this point we realized that we were in a new ball game.”

The Supreme partnership introduced many people stateside to P&B. Bondaroff recalls the first release of the shoes in New York, “It was cool to see all these skaters, dirt bags, late night party-goers and this small creative scene rocking shoes all of the sudden. We went from dirty skate kicks during the day with holes and torn spots from shredding all day, to slipping into the shoes around 7pm for the second half of the day – the night shift.” Thanks to Supreme, New York’s skateboarders had a shoe that became part of their identity. “Pack of ten maniacs strolling the city,” he added, “profiling and causing ruckus and all wearing crispy shoes, we would turn heads on the street daily.”

Despite a growing fan base and requests for collaboration from retailers around the world, P&B left a gaping void in the legit casual shoe market when it stopped manufacturing shoes in 2003. “The decision to close the production unit in Kilkenny was forced upon us by dwindling sales. We are all shoe men first, and this decision was one of the toughest business decisions we ever had to make,” Bryan recalls. Since that time, the company has continued on, but only in name, as a retail department store in Kilkenny, Ireland.

People seeking pairs of the originals in recent years have had to resort to searching online auction sites. However, P&B’s clean white boxes have made some unexpected re-appearances. Union, Stussy and Red Five SF eventually sold out of the P&B-made Killa Shoe Co. stock they had from 2001. Supreme made their backstock of P&B’s available in early 2007 at their first ever warehouse sale in New York and at the aNYthing Gangstore in fall 2006. “When I opened my shop [aNYthing], Supreme still had backstock, and I wanted something from this brand…James always liked this product and knew at this time I had a strong art based and weirdo crowd that would circulate around our projects and appreciate this product. We re-released them at my shop showcasing all three styles together. There weren’t many shoes left, but they were highly appreciated by the scene,” Bondaroff said. “I still see people wearing them and most of these shoes are worn out and dirty, but when people pull them out they always look fresh and I turn my head.”

For those longing to see Padmore & Barnes return to shoemaking, there is some solace in the fact that the old P&B plant that made the original Wallabees is still intact in Kilkenny, Ireland. But these days it’s the skills needed to make the shoe that are lacking. “We have looked at going back into manufacturing, but we have been unable to find a partner factory who could manufacture to our standards,” Bryan said. “The search continues!”

FUNNY HOW THE TABLES TURN. AS WE GET OLDER, WE CARRY OURSELVES A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT. THERE WILL ALWAYS BE A DEMAND FOR A SIMPLE AND WELL MADE SHOE THAT TRANSLATES ON THE STREETS AND CAN BE WORN BY THE STREETS. IT REMINDS ME OF THE MALE VERSION OF THE EASY SPIRIT LADY SHOES FROM A WHILE BACK. THEIR MOTTO WAS “LOOKS LIKE A PUMP FITS LIKE A SNEAKER.” ♠